Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 102375 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 512(@200wpm)___ 410(@250wpm)___ 341(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 102375 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 512(@200wpm)___ 410(@250wpm)___ 341(@300wpm)
Jino tilts his head slightly. "Did you feel humiliated last night after I put you to bed?"
The question stops me cold.
Did I? The bath had felt... good. Necessary. His hands had been gentle, his voice soothing. Even when his fingers slipped between my legs, I didn’t feel violated. It felt... inevitable. Right.
And that terrifies me more than any crop or command.
"Honesty sets you free, Emmaleen," he says, stepping closer. "If you would admit what you're so forcefully trying to deny, you'll find freedom in that truth."
"That I'm broken?" The words explode from me. "That I'm some pathetic submissive stereotype who gets wet when men treat me like garbage? Baby fuck me up and treat me like I’m nothing? That I'm so fucking damaged I'm addicted to pain?"
Jino considers this thoughtfully. "Maybe that's true. But it's not a threat."
"Not a threat?" I stand up. "All of this is a threat! The basement, the crop, the positions, the fucking see-through nightgown! It's all designed to threaten me into submission!"
"Then why are you still here?" His voice remains maddeningly calm.
The question lands like a slap. Why am I still here?
Because I'm a fucking disaster with daddy issues? Because I'm running toward the flame that already burned me once? Because I don't know how to want healthy things?
Because deep down, I want this. And that makes me the worst kind of cliché.
Tears start streaming down my face, hot and humiliating. "Because there's something wrong with me. Because all of this—" I gesture wildly at the room, the nightgown, him "—turns me on. And I hate myself for it."
Jino crosses the room and pulls me up from the bed and into his arms. I should fight. I should claw at his eyes. I should scream.
Instead, I melt against him as he strokes my hair.
"There's nothing wrong with you," he murmurs, his voice vibrating against my temple. "This is your nature. Submissive. Written into your bones like a birthright." His fingers thread through my hair, each stroke deliberate and possessive. "You can't change who you are, no matter how many times you run. But you can change who you allow to see the real you—who you trust with that gift of surrender."
His hands caress me, claiming territory like he did last night—without permission, without hesitation. Reading my body like it's already his.
As if sensing my thoughts, his voice drops to a whisper against my ear, each word deliberate and weighted with promise. "You chose this path, Emmaleen. You walked through that door knowing what waited. You're free to leave any time—the choice remains yours." His fingers trail across my shoulder blades, mapping territories yet unclaimed. "But if you'd just surrender... just once... give me a chance to show you..." His breath warms my skin as his hand settles possessively at the small of my back. "I can teach your body how to sing with joy under my control. How to find freedom in the chains you fear."
I remain silent, my mind a pinball machine of conflicting thoughts.
Is this what I want? A life defined by submission, by kneeling and obeying another's will? Or am I simply falling into the same destructive pattern, mistaking control for care, convincing myself that abuse is love simply because the chains feel familiar against my skin?
The voice of self-preservation whispers warnings in my mind, reminding me how easily I once rationalized Tyler's escalating cruelty, how I reframed each violation as devotion until I couldn't recognize myself anymore.
Yet something about this feels different—structured rather than chaotic, intentional rather than impulsive. I stare at my trembling hands, wondering if I'm capable of distinguishing between captivity and choice, between surrender and subjugation.
I make myself look up at Jino. Find him studying me with an intensity that makes my pulse quicken. No. Not studying. That's a cold word. A calculating word. Too clinical for the heat I see flickering behind those ice-blue eyes.
Jino's gaze isn't dissecting me like some specimen under glass—it's consuming me, drinking in every detail of my face, my posture, my hesitation. Jino's eyes are longing for me, raw and unguarded in a way that makes me both terrified and strangely powerful all at once.
He's not Tyler. Tyler never gave me a choice. Never explained the rules. Never made me feel safe in my submission.
And Giovanni... Giovanni is something else entirely. A tempest meticulously contained within human flesh. His unpredictability carries the precision of lightning, his danger radiates from him like static electricity before a strike. The magnetic pull he exerts feels almost supernatural, drawing me toward him even as every instinct screams to run in the opposite direction.
He exists as a contradiction—controlled chaos, calculated wilderness, a predator who's learned to walk among civilization without ever truly becoming part of it.
Jino's fingers slide delicately along my jawline, tracing a path that's both electric and commanding, leaving a tingle in their wake. There's a deliberate slowness to his movement, as if he's savoring the power that comes with touching me, dictating the pace of this intimate dance. "Would you permit me to demonstrate that a place like the dungeon, with its sternness and shadows, could become a source of your contentment?"